This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people, coming to you from

the city where the west begins, Fort Worth, Texas. Tree strung with twinkling lights, grand

table set with all the trimmings, the sound of peaceful carols being sung, mantles decked with

stockings and garland.

These are just some of the many magical images that come to mind when we think of Christmas

traditions.

But it wasn't always that way.

In fact, in early America, Christmas was so out of control that it was actually banned.

So how did we get from chaos to cozy? Well, one writer from

the 1800s, Washington Irving, helped reinvent the ways we celebrate the Christmas holiday,

and he didn't even mean to do it. Here's Brian J. Jones with the story.

Music Here's Brian J. Jones with the story.

So when Irving is writing his collection of stories for what becomes the sketchbook,

at one point he bundles together five short stories that he titled Old Christmas.

And it's about his narrator who is alone at Christmas time is invited by a friend of his to ride out to the countryside to Bracebridge Hall and observe the way Squire Bracebridge celebrates the old-fashioned English Christmas.

And Irving starts telling the reader about all these traditions that Squire Bracebridge is celebrating.

He is celebrating Christmas old school.

It's Yule Logs Burning and it's eggnog and it's tons and tons of food out 24-7 for anybody to eat at any time.

It's children waking up early and waking up the adults, and it's mistletoe, and it's people

singing songs, and it's people riding in sleighs, and it's hillsides glistening under

...